When Lanny nodded, Bill strolled in escorting Jasmine. “Emma, don’t eat the rings!” Nathan shouted, and Jasmine looked ahead to see Nathan digging in Emma’s mouth before pulling out the wedding rings. Chip just stood there smiling, offering the pillow like a tiny waiter serving hors d’oeuvres.
“Oh, Emma is so going to learn to share,” Jasmine mumbled, watching Nathan wipe the rings off. As he put them on the pillow, Ruth eased up and picked up Emma when she moved back to grab the shiny things on the pretty pillow.
When Nathan turned and saw Jasmine, he smiled and gave her a wink. “He’s not nervous,” Jasmine whispered to Bill.
“Girl, he’s still drunk from last night,” Bill informed her. “You could light his ass on fire, and he wouldn’t even bat an eyelash right now.”
“Oh,” Jasmine giggled.
When he handed Jasmine off, Bill took his place with the groomsmen and Lanny smiled at the two. As Lanny started talking, Nathan leaned over to Jasmine. “You look good,” he whispered.
“So do you,” she smiled.
After they exchanged vows, Nathan didn’t wait for Lanny and picked Jasmine up while he lifted her veil and kissed her. Everyone cheered, watching the two kiss. Setting her down, Nathan heard a ‘ching’ and gave Jasmine a confused look. Bending down, he lifted the hem of her dress to see she was wearing cowboy boots with spurs.
Standing up, “You are so bad,” he laughed.
“Hey, Aiden, Penny, and Gina are staying at our place to give us a place alone for a night, and I didn’t want to forget them,” Jasmine grinned.
They moved to the center of the hall and danced together, then danced with everyone else. After cutting the cake, the girls gathered when Jasmine prepared to throw the bouquet. Turning her back to the women and girls, everyone watched the flowers sail to the group when a lone figure took off running and leapt in the air, diving over the group of outstretched hands and snatching the flowers out of the air. Hitting the ground in a roll, Robin sprang to her feet holding up the flowers in triumph.
“YOU GO, GIRL!” Bill bellowed from the back of the reception hall.
Hiding her face with one hand, Janice stomped to the back of the hall and grabbed Bill by the ear, pulling him outside. “I swear, he’s trying to pawn Robin off to John,” Nathan told Jasmine as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Ya think?!” Jasmine cried out.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The dusty, two-lane stretch of road barely qualified as a highway, but the quartet of heavy motorcycles moved in a diamond pattern, taking up the asphalt from shoulder to shoulder. The bass roar of the engines made communications impossible, but the lead rider directed the trailing trio with subtle hand gestures that conveyed his desires with no hesitation.
When the small contingent of riders approached a curve in the road, the lead rider slowed from his breakneck pace, and the other three followed in a synchronized pattern that even Rusty admitted, if only to himself, was impressive.
After powering through the turn, the leader spied a bike parked up on the shoulder, and an upturned visor-less helmet resting four feet to the rear of the back wheel, perfectly centered. The Harley parked on the side of the road was a nice ride, a 1969 Harley Davidson Electra Glide, fully restored and highlighted in electric blue trim. Of the operator, the four riders could make out no sign.
The lead rider didn’t hesitate, rolling to a stop while keeping the engine at an idle.
“Where you at, Officer Bill?”
“Right here, Rhett,” Bill replied, his voice barely carrying above the engines’ purr. Unlike the times before, these hogs had been heavily-modified to dampen the roar, rather than accentuate it. They weren’t quiet by any stretch, though.
Deputy Bill Engvist emerged from the ground like a rising corpse, a zombie sitting up from the grave. All four men started at the sight, but Rhett Kester held up a gloved fist to his three companions while Bill slowly reached up and removed his face mask.
“Shit, Officer, you sure know how to make an entrance. Just lucky I recognized your hog,” Rhett called out, his voice steady.
“Yeah, I figured,” Bill replied, taking a moment to dust himself off as he rose to one knee and then stood to his full height. He wore loose tan coveralls, meant to blend into the color of the sand here at the pull-off, and conceal his body armor underneath. “That’s why Nathan asked me to hold this little pow-wow.”
“So, the Madman’s still running around these parts?” Rhett replied, half to himself. “I figured he’d have already made an appearance by now. And how about you, Officer? I take it, you’re standing with your friend, rather than the old sheriff?”
The posse had staked out this route for nearly a week, getting a feel for the rhythm of the tiny settlement before initiating contact. Nathan had raged at his friends’ refusal to allow him to join in the mission until Rusty, as head of security, had to put his foot down.
“I stand with all my friends, Mr. Kester. That includes Sheriff Hargrove,” Bill replied evenly. Then he decided to ask his own question. “So, what made you boys pick Blaisedell? Way out here in the middle of nowhere, with only that one little store and a cluster of houses? Isolated, so nobody can complain about what you did to the homeowners? And it’s Deputy Bill, if you please.”
Bill and the rest of the posse knew the truth, but he wanted to see what Rhett would say. They’d gotten lucky, Bill thought, that it was Rhett he’d managed to contact. Though he was the youngest of the Kester brothers, he was also the smartest, and the one acknowledged as the leader of the bunch of outlaw bikers.
“Not like that at all, Deputy,” Rhett said, the denial hot in his words. “This here’s my wife’s homeplace and her people. We’re just trying to keep our heads down here, ride out this storm.”
“You mean, try to evade Doyle after he double-crossed you, right? What the hell happened there, Rhett? D-Bag was a pain in the ass before, but now he’s turned into some kind of monster.”
Rhett sniffed, then spit before speaking again. “He’s working for the fucking Chinese, that’s what he’s doing. And he’s hunting us, and probably you too. Gets a reward for however many folks he can round up and get hooked on the meth. Them Chinese is smart, Deputy. They got us working against each other, and that keeps the rest of us out of the fight.”
Bill digested what the biker said. He’d known this already, but it was interesting to find out what others knew too.
“I’ve got something for you,” Bill said, gesturing slowly to his bike. Specifically, the pannier on the near side. “Downloaded video, on a digital device.”
“What is it?”
“We had a two-man recon team watching an intersection,” Bill replied evenly. “They didn’t know what was going down.”
From any other cop, Rhett might have expected a double-cross, because too many of them were as crooked as the county roads around here. However, he knew from his informants on the street that Bill Engvist was a righteous lawman. He didn’t take, wouldn’t accept bribes, and lived according to a code of conduct that Rhett Kester might not follow, but he could respect.
Snapping his fingers to one of the prospects seated on a hog, Rhett pointed to the rear of the sweet Harley. Only seconds later, the gang leader had the small digital player in the palm of his hand, watching the last sixty seconds of his brother’s life on Earth.
“Sorry for your loss,” Bill said as Rhett folded up the little digital player and returned it with a hand that only shook for a second. Bill absently slipped the tiny notebook in a pocket, never taking his eyes off Rhett Kester.
“That was Hugh. He is…was two years older than me. Like I said, they got us all fighting against each other, and the Chinese and their buddies are just laughing it up.”
“Rhett, we agree. This fight going on now,” Bill waved, gesturing broadly to encompass the mountains in the near distance and their little valley, “is way more than our little game of cops and robbers from before. You thought the pigs were
bad under the old regime? Just wait until these fuckers get their re-education camps filled up.”
“So what’re you proposing, Bill? You want us to work together? Let bygones be bygones? Fuck that. We’re strong here, in this valley. The Iron Lords have come together here, and we got over a hundred fighters to hold what we’ve claimed,” Rhett boasted, and Bill knew some of it was directed to the three other men still straddling their bikes. The words rang hollow to Bill. From their surveillance of the few farmhouses and the surrounding countryside, Bill and Rusty estimated the Iron Lords now numbered less than thirty combat effectives. A dozen or so more, if you counted the local menfolk, but other than standing guard or tending the fields, they didn’t seem to do much else.
“We gotta stand together. Or at least, not prey on each other.”
“I won’t fight your battles, law dog. We got a good thing going here. Finally.” Rhett’s voice rose, and emotion finally found its way into his words. “Shit, you saw I’ve already lost one brother to Doyle’s assholes in this mess, and Eddie’s wife was killed just last week.”
“Not asking you to do anything other than being a good neighbor. You stay in your area, and we’ll stay in ours. Don’t hassle the sheriff, and he won’t come looking for you.”
“You keep saying ‘we’,” Rhett observed, getting his emotions under control, “and then talking about the sheriff like he’s some other country or something, Deputy Bill. What, you and Nathan and a few of your buddies get mad at Frank and break off?”
“You know, when I was in Afghanistan, the locals had a saying: ‘Me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my cousin against the world.’ Get what I’m saying?”
Rhett twisted in his seat, looking around at the grassland surrounding their little parley field.
“You got me under a gun right now, don’t you?” he said softly, so only Bill could hear his words.
“Hell, Rhett, we ain’t dumb, and I know you aren’t either,” Bill replied, his lips turned up in what might be considered a smile. He was nearly done delivering his message, and he waved his left hand carefully, reaching into the breast pocket of his coveralls. “Here’s a little something for you boys. We’ve taken the liberty of outlining some boundaries on this map. The shaded areas there, that’s us. If things settle down, and we can get a grip on Doyle’s crew, then maybe we can do some trading later on. But for right now, be a good neighbor and don’t trespass.”
Rhett took a moment to glance at the trifold paper, noting the boundaries as outlined, and looked back at Bill.
“What do you call yourselves? Your group?”
“Well, you gotta remember back to the old days, when this part of the country was first settled. When the outlaws got too numerous and the bad men got rowdy, then the sheriff had to call on his posse. We are the Posse, and will answer the call.” Bill paused, his pale blue eyes boring into Rhett Kester. “Don’t make us come for you and yours, Mr. Kester. Be a good neighbor. We’ll be watching.”
The End
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